News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – As British veterinary officials continued to investigate outbreaks of food-and-mouth disease (FMD) at two farms this week, worries about possible outbreaks at two other sites in England were dispelled.

Animal handlers at a farm in Kent and a zoo in Surrey reported suspicious lesions in animals, but test results were negative, and the government eased restrictions on livestock movements in those areas.

(CIDRAP News) – A preliminary British government report says the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak discovered last week near London was very probably caused by a leak from a local laboratory.

(CIDRAP News) – Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), a cattle disease that devastated the British beef industry in 2001, has resurfaced in England, possibly because of a laboratory leak.

(CIDRAP News) – To speed emergency responses to avian influenza and other animal and plant diseases, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) inaugurated a new crisis management center (CMC) at its Rome headquarters today.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today that a new animal disease crisis management center will begin operating in late July at FAO headquarters in Rome, with an initial focus on H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The outbreak of an unusual pig-related disease in China might be nearly spent, and evidence continued to point to Streptococcus suis as the cause, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – A puzzling disease outbreak linked to pigs in southwestern China has expanded to 152 cases with 31 deaths, more than double the number of cases reported 3 days ago, according to Chinese news services.